Tom Triumphs in Nobles Park

Tom Jones played in a huge marquee up at Nobles Park last night.

Photo by Murray Lambden

The big fear when you pay the price required to see an ageing megastar is that you will be presented with a faded version, not the one that shone so brightly.

Most of us have seen footage of Sinatra on his last couple of final comebacks, Paul McCartney is a more modern example and when The Who played in Peel, they cleverly used backing singers to hit the high notes.

The Voice however still possesses all his powers and spent the 90 minutes belting out his most famous songs of the last 50 years or so.

And yet, it isn't all about the singing! Such is his presence, you smile when he smiles, laugh when he laughs and cry when he cries as he appeared to when performing an old number that his wife had picked out as her favourite on his latest album. He may no longer quite have all the moves but most of us danced when he danced too.

His projected enjoyment was reflected by the crowd to produce a tremendous atmosphere.

There was a raft of musical genres from gospel songs that he used to sing in private company with Elvis, right through to his cover of the Prince hit.

The old ones were the best, though he and his musical director kept us guessing by tinkering with some of his most famous tunes, the reggae intro to 'Unusual' being a prime example.

Earlier we arrived to hear Joe Crookall (son of Peel MHK, Tim) who is now supporting other artists on their UK tours too and he certainly looks destined for future success.

Photo by Gary Weightman

The other acts were enjoyablewith out being spectacular and the whole experience was excellent, though I do concur with comments I've heard regarding the food being difficult to come by unless you fancied queueing for an hour.

As is the norm, the ladies weren't catered for well enough in the toilet department but the weather held long enough not to make the event a washout, so overall I thought it was a brilliant night and I hope the numbers add up for the promoters because I would certainly support more concerts such as this one.

Take the High Road - Glen Mona to Laxey

After quite a while without walking together, Irene & I drove to Glen Mona in Maughold on Sunday, going where we'd never been before me in my 50 years coming to and living here. It always makes me laugh when I hear people saying that they've 'Done' the Isle of Man in an afternoon.

Just by the pub, which by the way is being renovated, though I am unsure as to whether as a hostelry or a private dwelling, there is a green lane which pronounces that it leads to Snaefell Mines.

The early stages have quite a steep ascent and probably my least favourite thing about this particular route is that much of it is very rocky (though I believe that this sort of terrain is good for strengthening the muscles of the foot and ankle, providing of course you don't break it.)

Quite soon, you have views of Maughold, Cornaa and the Dhoon, as you skirt Slieau Ouyr. It bears a resemblance to Laxey Valley which you see from the Snaefell Mountain Railway and indeed eventually, there is a view of the our highest peak and as you round Slieau Ruy. Eventually, you are actually at the top of the ridge that is visible from the train.

It was here that we elected to turn back towards the sea, rather than visit the mines, mentioned earlier.

The weather wasn't the best in all honesty which added bleakness to the beauty and the only other beings that we saw on this entire path were on motorbikes, though we had quite a few sheep with their lambs as company.

The walking surface improved somewhat on this section and the vista was stunning as you could see the hills to the South with Glen Ruy, Axnfell, Agneash, Baldhoon and the village itself with Clay Head and Baldrine further along.

As usual, anything that we do doesn't quite go according to plan, which had originally been to drop down to Ballaragh and catch the bus back to whence we'd came at Bulghan Farm.

A chum of mine had made me aware of a new 'App' called 'Bus-Man' which theoretically is brilliant as a journey planner. However, it basically told me that there wasn't a bus for over an hour and that it was 4.9* miles to Glen Mona (though the trip it said would take only 2 minutes!! Must be Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes engine in it ;) ), so we decided to walk back to Laxey , take refreshment and pick up public transport from there.

It was a good job that I decided to check www.iombusandrail.info because the time shown on Bus-Man would have led to us missing the bus as it was showing as 5 minutes later than it actually was!

It has to be said that the App is only in development at the moment so hopefully any glitches will be sorted soon because it should be really handy..

To add insult to injury, there was a bus scheduled at Ballaragh when we had wanted it! Not to worry, the extra few kilometres did us no harm and we enjoyed our pint in the Mines Tavern.

The 12k (7.5 miles) total took us about 2 hours & 10 minutes.

* I think it should have read 4.9k as it was approximately 3 miles on my car odometer and although the bus was doing a fair lick, I still doubt it would take only two minutes even if it's kilometres rather than miles!